Skylights fight tough Frontier rivals

The Montana State University-Northern Skylights knew their first two Frontier Conference home games of the season were going to be daunting. And they were because they had to play two rivals ranked in the NAIA Top 25.

However, Saturday night, Northern gave one of those rivals all it could handle.

Inside the Armory Gymnasium, the Skylights lost a heartbreaker to No. 16 Lewis-Clark State, 51-49.

Northern battled the Warriors down to the wire, and with just :03 left, Peyton Kehr's driving layup, which just rimmed out, would have sent the game to overtime. Instead, the Skylights were left with a bitterly close loss and still searching for their first win in league play.

"There are no moral victories right now," MSU-N head coach Chris Mouat said. "The bottom line is, we had a chance to put away a very good team tonight, and we didn't do it. So that's disappointing. But our kids played extremely hard for 40 minutes. They played really well. I was really proud of the way they competed. The only thing we didn't do is finish it off. But it wasn't for a lack of effort or heart. Our kids really showed up tonight after a tough one to swallow last night."

Northern got off to a great start, especially after its struggles with UM-Western Friday night as Kehr drilled two first-quarter 3-pointers to help the Skylights stake a 16-15 lead.

LCSC picked up the intensity in the second stanza, going inside to Jossilyn Blackman, but a Sabin Keo three helped the Skylights hang tough, trailing just 28-26 at the break.

But the first half was just a prelude to a wildly entertaining final 20 minutes.

Northern started the second stanza on a 6-0 run, and five straight points at the end of the period by Tiara Gilham gave the Skylights a 41-38 lead with 10 minutes left.

Then, in the first five minutes of the final period, things really tightened up. Peyton Souvenir hit a trey to lift LC to a one-point lead, but Kehr answered with two straight buckets to give Northern a 46-45 edge with under two to play. It wouldn't be enough, though, as Delaney Henerey buried a triple with :41 left, and the Skylights missed three critical free throws on their next two trips down the floor. Those misses would prove costly, but Northern's heart and grit also was the reason the Skylights had a chance to tie or win the game in the final nine seconds.

"I thought our defense was really good tonight," Mouat said. "Our kids executed it perfectly. They (Warriors) hit some really big shots, but we did, too. I thought we had a number of kids step up big for us tonight. There were some things that, had they gone differently, we would have been able to get over the finish line. But again, I was proud of the great effort our kids gave us tonight."

MSU-N played phenomenal defense on the potent Warriors, who came in averaging nearly 85 points per night. The Skylights held LCSC to just 31 percent shooting, but LC also hit seven threes and won the battle of the boards. On the other end, Northern got 18 points from Kehr, while Gilham scored nine in her first significant action in two months.

"We just have to learn from this one," Mouat said. "This is a good performance we can build off of and grow from, and that's what we'll do moving forward."

Western locks down Skylights

Friday night, the Skylights rang in the new year with a difficult loss to one of the best teams, not just in the Frontier, but in all of the NAIA in the UM-Western Bulldogs.

Behind star guard Brianna King, the No. 4 Dawgs raced past Northern 64-30 in the Armory Gymnasium. But as great as King was, it was Western's team defense that stole the show as the Dawgs held the Skylights to just 25 percent shooting, forced 20 turnovers, and allowed MSU-N just 12 field goals on the night.

"Give Western credit," Northern head coach Chris Mouat said. "They came in only giving up 41 points per game. We knew how good they were defensively. Their pressure really bothered us tonight. They were extremely good defensively, and we didn't handle it well at all."

Actually, it seemed Northern was going to be fighting for its life before the game even started, as the Skylights were assessed a technical foul prior to the opening tip because of an equipment malfunction. Then, the Dawgs raced out to an 8-0 lead, and despite 3-pointers from Peyton Kehr and Sabin Keo, Western led 18-10 after one quarter.

Then, the Dawgs jumped on King's back.

She scored 14 straight points to start the second stanza, before Sydney Hovde finally answered with a three-point play. However, King came right back and hit her second straight triple, capping an incredible 17-point run by the senior All-American. The run also pushed Western to a 37-17 lead at intermission, and while Allix Goldhahn canned two treys in the third stanza, Northern was never able to recover.

"The bottom line is, we didn't shoot the ball well at all," Mouat said. "When you take 48 shots and make 12, and when you score two points in a quarter, that's just not going to be good enough in any college basketball game. We just didn't play well. We turned it over too much, we got out-rebounded, we got beat to loose balls and we shot it poorly pretty much all over the floor."

Shooting did doom the Skylights, who shot just 20 percent in the second half, and went more than seven minutes without a field goal. Kehr and Keo each scored seven points for the Skylights, while on the other end, King poured in 27 points to go with two steals and two assists. She also made five of Western's 10 triples as the Bulldogs stayed unbeaten until a Saturday night loss at Providence.

"Our kids played hard," Mouat said. "They battled. But there are things we have to fix and we have to fix them quickly. We just simply must play better."

After the two losses in the Armory, the Skylights are now 0-4 in the Frontier and 8-8 overall. They'll have a short turnaround, having to travel to No. 13 Providence Tuesday night. It will be MSU-N's fifth straight league game against a Top 25 opponent. MSU-N is home this Saturday to play Montana Tech.

Skylights are 0-4 in Frontier, 8-8 overall; Next Up at Providence Tuesday

UM-Western 64, Skylights 30

Western 18 19 10 17 - 64

Northern 10 7 11 2 - 30

UM-W - Britt Cooper 4-7 2-2 11, Cierra Lamey 3-8 0-0 6, Paige Holmes 1-4 0-0 2, Brianna King 10-24 2-3 27, Tori Anderson 2-5 0-0 6, Shannon Worcster 2-4 0-0 5, Savanna Bignell 3-6 0-0 7. Totals: 25-58 4-5.

MSU-N - Sydney Hovde 2-5 1-1 5, Gokce Aslan 2-8 0-0 5, Sabin Keo 3-10 0-0 7, Allix Goldhahn 2-7 0-0 6, Peyton Kehr 3-9 0-0 7, Petra Sellin 0-0 0-0 0, Jada Nicholson 0-1 0-0 0, Jessica Curl 0-2 0-0 0, Hailey Nicholson 0-3 0-0 0, Lily Hilderbrand 0-1 0-0 0, Tiara Gilham 0-2 0-0 0. Totals: 12-48 1-1.

3-pointers: UM-W 10-29 (Cooper 1, King 5, Anderson 2, Worcster 1, Bignell 1), MSU-N 5-22 (Aslan 1, Keo 1, Goldhahn 2, Kehr 1). Rebounds: UM-W 27 (Cooper 7), MSU-N 24 (Goldhahn 5). Fouls: UM-W 9, MSU-N 9. Fouled out: None.

LC State 51, Skylights 49

Lewis-Clark 15 13 10 13 - 51

MSU-Northern 16 10 15 8 - 49

LCSC - Hailey Turner 4-5 0-0 10, Abbie Johnson 1-6 1-2 3, Jossilyn Blackman 307 4-6 10, Cali Moscrip 1-1 0-0 2, Hannah Burland 1-2 0-0 3, Peyton Souvenir 2-10 0-0 6, Jansen Edmiston 1-2 0-0 2, Jamie Nielson 0-3 1-2 1, Delaney Henerey 2-5 5-6 10, Kiara Burlage 0-2 3-4 3. Totals: 15-47 14-20.

MSU-N - Hailey Nicholson 3-8 0-2 6, Sydney Hovde 1-3 3-4 5, Gokce Aslan 0-2 1-2 1, Peyton Kehr 6-11 4-4 18, Sabin Keo 1-2 2-2 5, Petra Sellin 0-0 0-0 0, Jessica Curl 1-2 0-0 2, Lily Hilderbrand 0-3 0-0 0, Tiara Gilham 3-7 3-3 9. Totals: 16-41 12-14.

3-pointers: LCSC 7-25 (Turner 2, Burland 1, Souvenir 2, Edmiston 1, Henerey 1), MSU-N 3-12 (Kehr 2, Keo 1). Rebounds: LCSC 29 (Blackman 9), MSU-N 27 (Nicholson 4). Fouls: LCSC 20, MSU-N 19. Fouled out: Souvenir.